Once again, we are seeing an increase in the number of majors/pre-majors for our department. Even as other universities are seeing a decline in enrollment, Western is not – nor is the journalism department. As we begin the 2019-2020 academic year, we have 275 majors and pre-majors and 43 minors. The latest numbers place 98 in the public relations track, 92 in the visual journalism and 85 in the news-editorial track. These numbers represent an increase in each one of our tracks, and an overall increase of approximately 10 percent.

Our faculty are, as always, doing amazing work in the community, in their research, in their teaching…I wouldn’t even know where to begin. They have written books, developed grants, taught honors courses, revamped classes, traveled overseas with students, developed community partnerships, started up a food pantry – all of which benefit our students and the university. For specific information, read the faculty updates to learn more about all of the exciting projects they are working on.

Once again, during the past year our students devoted nearly 20,000 hours of community service through internships and service-learning projects in courses such as Advanced Reporting, Advanced VJ, PR Campaigns and Advanced PR Writing. In connection with a State Department grant obtained by Brian J. Bowe, Carolyn Nielsen and Joe Gosen, six of our students traveled with those professors to Tunisia in September. They had the chance to work with students from L’Institut de Presse et des Sciences de l’Information. In the spring, students and faculty from IPSI will visit Western Washington University. Our students also continue to be sought out for jobs after graduation with several opportunities arising from their internships. Journalism continues to be one of the top departments in terms of percent of graduates working in the field they majored in.

This year, Western’s publications were also honored by the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) again. Our students were also recognized in the regional Mark of Excellence competition sponsored by the SPJ with seven finalists and three winners. Klipsun was recognized as Best Student Magazine, Taylor Nichols won for non-fiction magazine article and October Yates won for online/digital news videography.

Our students continue to amaze us beyond the publications. Mysti Willmon was selected for the EIJ News team covering Excellence in Journalism at the Society of Professional Journalists’ national conference in Baltimore in September. Three of our students were recognized for their work at the World Journalism Education Congress in Paris. Dan Thomas and Nic Ulmer won an award of excellence for their video project on homelessness in Bellingham developed for Joe Gosen’s capstone VJ course. Kristina Rivera won an award of excellence in the magazine competition for the Good Looks magazine prospectus she developed in Sheila Webb’s Publications: From Concept to Design class. In addition, several of our students were recognized during Western’s Scholars Week poster presentations.

I am also pleased to announce that two of our faculty members – Prof. Joe Gosen and Dr. Derek Moscato – were both awarded tenure with promotion to associate professor. Also, Dr. Carolyn Nielsen was promoted to full professor. Please join me in congratulating them on these important achievements!

Finally, the more recent alumni worked very closely with Karen Smith, our department manager for the last five years. She moved on to greener pastures this summer (still at Western, however!) and we are delighted to have hired Jenny Bettis as our new department manager. Jenny comes to us from California, where she was a faculty member in political science at Chico State, and also worked in office management overseeing various projects. She joined us in October and is already an essential member of the journalism department. I know she will be an excellent adviser to both students and faculty – particularly to me! See the article about her in this newsletter to get to know our newest staff member.

As always, don’t forget to like the WWU Journalism Alumni page on Facebook to share information and hear more about what’s going on in the department. This includes any job openings we may hear about.

— Jennifer Keller